Punished, As A Boy is the fourth episode in AMC's The Terror.
Background[]
A series of cunning attacks on the ships proves to the men they are not battling an ordinary bear.
Summary[]
By November 1847, there is some concern regarding the fate of the expedition and Sir John's wife and his niece try to pressure the Admiralty in London to send out a search and rescue party. Sir John Ross shares their belief that the ships might be trapped in the ice but the rest of the Admiralty does not and refuses to organize an expedition. Angered by their inaction, the two women decide to fund a ship for themselves.
Back in the Arctic, the creature continues to kill members of the British expedition, the crews of Erebus and Terror begin to believe it's something more than just a bear. One man, Petty Officer Cornelius Hickey, leads an unauthorized expedition to abduct Lady Silence, bringing her back to the ships in the belief that she is controlling the creature. When Hickey disputes Crozier's reprimand during a debriefing, Crozier orders him subject to a more severe lashing than his fellow abductors, ordering him to be "punished as a boy" (whipped across the buttocks rather than the back).
An increasingly alcoholic Crozier announces to Terror's crew an opportunity to transfer to Erebus due to Terror's precarious location on a fault in the ice, and all but ten of Terror's crew depart for Erebus. Meanwhile, Mr. Goodsir tries to befriend Lady Silence and explain to her why the British are in the region.
Trivia[]
- Historical advisor Matthew Betts makes a cameo appearance as a seaman aboard HMS Terror. He is seen with a red scarf following the scene where Crozier orders Lady Silence to be brought to HMS Erebus and orders Hickey, Hartnell, and Manson below to be questioned about their actions in kidnapping Lady Silence.
- When Captain James Fitzjames describes the Netsilik as "covetous, treacherous, and cruel", it is a reference to Charles Dickens and what he wrote in his magazine Household Words, where he blamed the native population for the demise of the Franklin Expedition using almost exactly the same words.